The Ego Worries, Let It
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
Readings
Matthew 6:31-34
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Psalm 118:2-7a (responsive reading for live service)
Let Israel say:
“His love endures forever.”
Let the house of Aaron say:
“His love endures forever.”
Let those who fear the Lord say:
“His love endures forever.”
When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord;
he brought me into a spacious place.
The Lord is with me;
I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
The Lord is with me; he is my helper.
Read the written message below with music videos
“Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength - carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” These words were written by the author Corrie ten Boom, who knew something about worry as she and her family helped Jews escape the Nazis by hiding them in their home. At least, until they were caught, and she was placed in a concentration camp. It’s a testament to her experience and her wisdom that she came out of these situations espousing the importance of letting go of worry. It’s something that the sages have told us throughout the ages, from Buddha to Christ, and yet I think we often resign ourselves to our worry. Today we look at how we might truly let go of worry, coming to notice that the part of us that worries isn’t truly us, but more like a thundercloud in the sky of our mind that we’ve decided to follow around in our over-identification with a limited idea of who we are, what we call “ego.”
I think that when we hear that we “shouldn’t worry,” at best we resolve to clear our minds of whatever is worrying us that day. We might even put a post-it on our mirror to remind us of such wise words. But our ancient texts take a different tact. Just as certain veins of modern psychology have discovered, many scriptures invite us to start to uncover and notice what sees our ego and its worry. They tell us that we are much more than our idea of who we are, that words don’t do us justice, and that there is part of us already beyond worry, already transcendent.
The problem with adopting the world’s idea of what it means to be a “person,” is that we’ve come to adopt an image of ourselves that is perishable since we identify with perishable things, this is what we call our ego in its most general sense. When we place our sense of value in these things (our body, thinking mind, circumstance, history, attachments, as well as our façade, image, and reputation), we can’t help but become overly defensive about them even though we have little control over them. And in our limited knowledge of who and what we are we become naturally fearful and anxious.
However, the voice of God throughout the ages speaks to us from a place of deep love and wisdom, which knows that we are fundamentally already one with it. It tells us that we’ve become too identified with our passing thoughts, our worries, our seeking for “what’s next,” instead of truly marinating in what we actually are. We are the light of love, of consciousness, of awareness and truth. They tell us that we don’t need to believe this to start to come to know it.
Ultimately, you could say that we don’t know what we are, not really. Even awakened sages often say that when you come to awaken to your angelic nature, your Divine core, it is beyond description, and it is less a “knowing” than it is a “being.” It is a type of knowing that is beyond words, a recognition of what we truly are. Despite the obvious truth that words can never do anything justice, due to our centeredness on ego we often live in our inner stream of words coupled with our emotions, which to us becomes our inner, worrisome world. What we are called to awaken to is a natural recognition that these things arise in us, our ideas about anything arise in us, our sense of ourselves is seen by us, but what does the seeing is beyond perception. It is transcendental, a light that shines on our world.
The trick to these words is their simplicity, it is our minds that want to make it complex. In a way, the sages are telling us to relax a bit, to notice our nothingness, to meditate on our inner spaciousness, which helps us to recognize that everything is a gift from God. When we start to realize the truth of the ground of being, its stability and purity, we escape worry by letting it be. We come to see that even the ego that worries is something fleeting, passing, and not a threat to what we are. We stop following the thunder clouds and notice that there’s a lot more in our inner sky. We divest our treasure from the ego-identity, placing it where it belongs: in the heaven within, in God, in our true self.
It can be fun to worry. No really, I think we sometimes entertain ourselves with our over-imagination and the inner drama of our daydreaming about the future or even present issues. It can be unpleasant, but some part of us feels like it’s getting something done by worrying. And we can tell at a glance when we’re living too far into our projections, too much in our heads, if a sense of worry feels natural, seems almost always there. But the peace of being isn’t boring, it doesn’t need to be covered up. Even a sense of boredom or peace is seen from a place of even greater peace: we need not feel like we’re caught up in any one feeling or attitude because what we are is beyond these things. But to the extent in any given moment that we over-invest in our ego and our identity, instead of noticing it (and any idea of ourselves) arise in the light of being, we may feel the need to fill every moment with imagination, judgment, and pain.
Of course, I can’t imagine what Corrie went through helping to hide and protect Jews and then suffering in a concentration camp. Even her words about it only point to her experience, they can’t recreate it. But her wisdom shines through her words, and these words point us back to the peace at the root of being. She tells us from a place of hard-earned wisdom that we must let go of worry, that we should release our grasp on pain and fear. And the sages tell us that to do so we have to come to notice the part of us already beyond worry, that what we are looking for is where we are looking from. As they say, all gifts are from God and all goodness is of God, and what greater gift than the light of consciousness and what greater good than the love that is our very ground of being?
Peace to you,
Cory